Consumer Electronics Is Major Growth Area For Hard Drives

In-Stat : As consumers continue to amass large amounts of digital content, they require enhanced storage capacity on their consumer electronic products. Hard drive manufacturers are increasing storage capacities on smaller form factor hard disk drives (HDDs); as a result, these companies are poised to benefit from the expanding Consumer Electronics (CE) market. In 2004, shipments of hard disk drives into the Consumer Electronics segment reached 40 million units, and this market will reach almost 240 million units in 2009. Over the next few years, significant growth may come from portable devices such as PDAs, digital camcorders, and mobile phones.Alternative storage solutions, such as improved Flash, will continue to compete against small form factor HDDs. Nevertheless, HDD manufacturers are primed for impressive growth in the CE segment, especially as shipments of 1-inch HDDs escalate due to growth in the portable CE space.

• The 1-inch-and-smaller HDD market will win out over the forecast period and represent 50% of all HDDs shipped to the CE segment by 2009.

• Total worldwide shipments of hard drives will increase dramatically over the next five years, growing from approximately 304 million in 2004 to 500 million in 2009.

• As a result of demand for storing increased amounts of data on smaller, portable devices, HDD manufacturers have strengthened efforts to introduce products utilizing perpendicular recording.

Hard Disk Drives in CE: Primed for Impressive Growth Publ. 20051026